"I'm not the type to let a sleeping giant lie. I wake up the giant, slap him around, make him mad and beat him to the ground. I talk a big game because I carry a big stick." --- All-Pro Stanford Graduate

I lean towards Welker. He was good before NE. He's not playing his age yet, and fast players tend to age better. He'd sign a shorter contract because of his age. Welker is the best slot WR in the NFL, he'd be an enormous upgrade over Baldwin. He is very hard to defend, and can get open at will. He's even a deep threat.

I'd be very surprised if New England let him hit UFA, but if they did, I'd love to see Seattle schedule him a visit.

Given that what's really missing from the Seattle offense is a speed guy who can really put fear in opposing secondaries ... I would say Mike Wallace. Yeah I know that this guy's apparent "me first" attitude is a bit of a red flag, but we all know that Pete has a long history of success with these guys.

Keep in mind also that when we're talking about adding a WR and/or TE next year for this team (which is what I think that they'll honesty look to do) ... that it in general it takes WR's and TE's a couple of years to develop (Jerry Rice, Michael Crabtree, and Golden Tate are perfect examples). So while I believe JS might add one via the draft ... if we're looking for that WR who can honestly make an impact next season... it might make more sense to look Free Agency first rather than the Draft.

Hawkscanner wrote:Given that what's really missing from the Seattle offense is a speed guy who can really put fear in opposing secondaries ... I would say Mike Wallace. Yeah I know that this guy's apparent "me first" attitude is a bit of a red flag, but we all know that Pete has a long history of success with these guys.

He held out...so did Clem..He's actually not known for a bad attitude.

Welker? Blecccch. He wasn't much of anything in Miami, and seems to be a Brady player (like Branch was). Jennings is "meh", Bowe is kind of a nut and drops the ball, so I guess I'll go with Wallace. He's darn fast. I'd rather draft somebody personally. I think there are some great receivers this year. If we want speed, then I'll say it again. Draft Tavon Austin. Speed to burn.

Wallace! We don't have anybody on this team thats like Wallace. He's big, fast, pretty good hands can help keep plays alive when Wilson scambles. I could pitcure him giving us 10 plus TD's, most coming of play action. If he asks for to much. PASS on him and the rest. DB is to much like Rice. Welker and Jennings are to old. PASS

kearly wrote:I lean towards Welker. He was good before NE. He's not playing his age yet, and fast players tend to age better. He'd sign a shorter contract because of his age. Welker is the best slot WR in the NFL, he'd be an enormous upgrade over Baldwin. He is very hard to defend, and can get open at will. He's even a deep threat.

I'd be very surprised if New England let him hit UFA, but if they did, I'd love to see Seattle schedule him a visit.

See, the reason I think he may be more likely to hit the market than the others (outside of 60 year old Greg Jennings) is cause they have Julian Edelman waiting around. Obviously at this point he isn't the same receiver Welker is, but Belichick isn't going to overspend on any player besides Brady. That's how they have built their team for the past decade and won't change now. They have had no problem letting go of players who wanted more than they were willing to offer (this is how I invision our FO acting in the next 5 years.) Julian has proved to be reliable in the slot role before his injury. If their FO feels they can get similar results from Edelman with Brady picking apart defenses, I truly feel they would let Wes go.

Now, if I was Wes Welker I would take whatever the best offer NE gave me because he isn't going to have another QB throwing to him like Brady for the rest of his career. But if Wes is looking to get an upper tier contract, which I doubt the Pats will give him, I could see him looking for a team like us to go to. He is immediately an upgrade over Baldwin and finds a way to consistently get open against defenses. I would sign him in a heart beat. His contract won't be nearly as difficult to cover as a Larry Fitzgerald would be.

From this list though, I personally would love to have Dwayne Bowe come here. Regardless of his drop problem, he is a huge red zone target and consistently makes big plays in that area. Our offense doesn't need a guy who consistently can beat coverage for needed passes since Russell has the ability to extend plays. If we can get Dwayne for a reasonable contract I am 100% on board for that. If Andy Reid wants to deal for Matt Flynn as a part of it then that kills two birds with one stone.

I really like Bowe. I think he would be awesome for the Hawks. He has put up some very good numbers on terrible KC teams with a crappy QB. Can you imagine what he would do with the defense trying to figure out if they should attack Wilson, Lynch, Miller, Rice or Tate? OMG he would be wide open. TD SEAHAWKS!!!

I'm frankly surprised that Welker isn't the overwhelming favorite. Incredible hands. Always gets open. Think Rich Man's Bobby Engram. Wilson won't have to scramble to buy nearly as much time with Welker out there. Guy is the best slot WR in the NFL and possibly the greatest possession receiver of all time. And he's not shown any signs of letting up.

Richard Sherman doesn't just wanna get in your head, he wants to build a vacation home there.

R. Sherman: "I don't want to be an island. I want to be a tourist attraction. You come, I take your money & you go."

SalishHawkFan wrote:I'm frankly surprised that Welker isn't the overwhelming favorite. Incredible hands. Always gets open. Think Rich Man's Bobby Engram. Wilson won't have to scramble to buy nearly as much time with Welker out there. Guy is the best slot WR in the NFL and possibly the greatest possession receiver of all time. And he's not shown any signs of letting up.

+1

And I don't understand the comments that his success at NE is only due to their system.

The dude knows how to get open... period... and his YAC is pretty damn good as well.

Hell, I just went and researched his YAC... and he led the league the past two years in total yards after the catch.

SalishHawkFan wrote:I'm frankly surprised that Welker isn't the overwhelming favorite. Incredible hands. Always gets open. Think Rich Man's Bobby Engram. Wilson won't have to scramble to buy nearly as much time with Welker out there. Guy is the best slot WR in the NFL and possibly the greatest possession receiver of all time. And he's not shown any signs of letting up.

+1

And I don't understand the comments that his success at NE is only due to their system.

The dude knows how to get open... period... and his YAC is pretty damn good as well.

Hell, I just went and researched his YAC... and he led the league the past two years in total yards after the catch.

If he's available, sign him to at least a 2-year contract.

Because an inside slot receiver is not what this team truly needs. Golden Tate IMO should be this team's Wes Welker, as that's exactly where I'd move him with a speed guy who can really stretch a defense (like Wallace) on the outside. Now, that's no slight against Tate -- far from it. It's just acknowledging that Tate could do a heck of a lot of damage as an inside slot receiver (where I view him being ideally suited to).

Read the scouting reports on Bowe. He is a recognizable name, but he is slow, drops balls, has a poor work ethic, and disappears from games regularly. If you have actually done any research on him, you will realize you don't want him near your team. There's a reason why KC was making efforts to deal him this year.

Jennings has been hurt more that Sidney Rice the last 2 years. He should not even be an option for those of you that complained about Sidney at all.

Welker makes me nervous because I really believe that he will not be nearly the player he is without the Patriots.

Wallace is a premier WR talent, except for some reason he started dropping balls like crazy this year. If he can fix that, he's the best on the list. But if that is his new normal, I would honestly rather take a shot in the draft than dropping money on any of these guys.

As far as statistics. They're pretty much on par. I believe Wallace averages more TD catches a season (he has 32 career receiving touchdowns since 2009). While Bowe has 39 receiving TD's since 2007.

Mike Wallace seems good for about 8 TD's on 800 rec yds. But if we could get the Dwayne Bowe that showed up for the 2010 NFL Season, we would have an elite receiver. Bowe put up 15 rec TD's on 1,162 yds, and that was on a team that went 2-14 in the AFC West. Matt Cassel has a good season that year, going 27 TDs and 7 INTs with 3,100+ yards. The years that Dwayne Bowe had average to good stats, happened to be the years when Matt Cassel struggled. So if you give Bowe a good QB, he'll thrive. While Mike Wallace has Big Ben, who's pretty consistent, year in-year out.

ProckHawks wrote:Wallace! We don't have anybody on this team thats like Wallace. He's big, fast, pretty good hands can help keep plays alive when Wilson scambles. I could pitcure him giving us 10 plus TD's, most coming of play action. If he asks for to much. PASS on him and the rest. DB is to much like Rice. Welker and Jennings are to old. PASS

You're right about everything except Wallace being 'big'. He is average size. Some may even say he's a bit smaller compared to most of the high-talent receivers in the league.

From this list i'd go Bowe, he's been pretty productive without a QB. A guy who's not on this list but was really good at the end of the year is Danario Alexander, he is younger and might be a little cheaper then these guys. Not sure if he's a UFA or a RFA though.

SalishHawkFan wrote:I'm frankly surprised that Welker isn't the overwhelming favorite. Incredible hands. Always gets open. Think Rich Man's Bobby Engram. Wilson won't have to scramble to buy nearly as much time with Welker out there. Guy is the best slot WR in the NFL and possibly the greatest possession receiver of all time. And he's not shown any signs of letting up.

+1

And I don't understand the comments that his success at NE is only due to their system.

The dude knows how to get open... period... and his YAC is pretty damn good as well.

Hell, I just went and researched his YAC... and he led the league the past two years in total yards after the catch.

I think Wallace and Bowe will be out of our price range. We should not look to spend a ton on a WR. Russel will make any WR look better and this draft has a ton or talent that will be available at the top of the 2nd round.

Welker would be fun to have but how many short WR's do we want?

Gennings is older and isn't a big body but he might bring some leadership to our WR's he has speed and experience winning, plus has a backround with JS. If GB doesn't resign him which I think they will, I could see Seattle as a good fit for him over the next 2-3 years.

kearly wrote:I lean towards Welker. He was good before NE. He's not playing his age yet, and fast players tend to age better. He'd sign a shorter contract because of his age. Welker is the best slot WR in the NFL, he'd be an enormous upgrade over Baldwin. He is very hard to defend, and can get open at will. He's even a deep threat.

I'd be very surprised if New England let him hit UFA, but if they did, I'd love to see Seattle schedule him a visit.

NE already decided where to spend their money. With the two freak TEs they have. They arent afraid of losing Welker. I voted for Welker btw.

SharkHawk wrote:Welker? Blecccch. He wasn't much of anything in Miami, and seems to be a Brady player (like Branch was).

Welker is his own man. Just go back and watch the Seahawks-Patriots game again. Welker is not being made good by perfect Brady throws. He was legitimately carving our secondary up and getting WIDE open with consistency vs. our outstanding man coverage.

Granted, I don't think Welker is putting up 1500 yards in our offense, but he's not a product of a great QB, and he'll have another elite QB throwing him passes anyway. The appeal for me is that he's by far the best WR on the market when it comes to just flat out getting open at will, and that's what our WR corps needs the most right now.

v-jack, julio jones, or megatron are the only veteran players i'd be interested in getting. or fitz... definitely fitz.

otherwise, rice is really good, and tate was really good and will only get better; so we have some players already on the roster who are good. add in a rookie or two.

i'm thinking someone like jurevicius; not necessarily having a great top gear, but someone big who can move the chains. you get 2 or 3 guys like that, along with miller/mccoy and rice/tate/baldwin, it would be tough for a defense to stop.

if there's a julio jones type in the draft, definitely consider trading up.

I wouldn't make a huge push to sign any of them, as I'm generally very leary of free agent wideouts. They seem to have the biggest fizzle out rate of any position in free agency. However, if we had to sign one, Mike Wallace is the most attractive to me. Elite deep-play WR combined with an elite deep ball quarterback? That'd be fun.

I'm tired of seeing RW run for his life while waiting for a receiver to come open. Baldwin probably does the best job of it, but he's seldomly as wide open as Welker consistently is.

A good secondary can cover Rice and Wallace because Baldwin doesn't really scare them. Welker gives people fits. His threat from the slot would definitely make it easier on the guys running the deep routes.

onanygivensunday wrote:So what you're saying is the Hawks are mis-using Tate. Interesting.

It would be fun to have endless game film on Welker... and also on Tate... and overlap one image on top of the other while they are both running the same route.

My guess is if we were able to do that, Welker's league-leading success in catches and YAC would be obvious.

Just a hunch.

I'm not saying that the Hawks are "mis-using" Tate whatsoever. It's about realizing what this team already has on its roster ... and what's missing. Right now, the Seahawks already have 2 guys who can play in the slot and do a good job with that -- Golden Tate and Doug Baldwin. What they DON'T have ... is a guy who has real game breaking speed. No WR on this roster really has that -- Wallace does. And Tate's skill-set translates very well to the slot ... and in fact, I believe he'd be quite dangerous there. Tate excels at really making things happen and once he has the ball in his hands -- precisely what you ask a slot receiver to do.

I contend that if the Seahawks DO add a guy like Wallace that they're going to be running a lot of 3 WR sets next season. That's exactly what I would do IF they add a receiver like him.

Adding a guy like Wallace to the mix would help out the rest of the receiving corps immensely, as having a receiver with that kind of speed gives opposing secondaries someone that they really have to worry about. He would make Sidney Rice and Golden Tate all that much more productive ... as he'd create greater separation for them out there in zone coverages. That's what adding that kind of speed can do.

Wes Welker doesn't have that same kind of speed -- and as I said, they have guys like this on the roster already. Plus, I just don't see that Welker fits in with the whole "youth first" philosophy that Carroll and Schneider both clearly have. Welker will be 32 when the 2013 Season starts ... whereas Wallace will be 26. Something else to keep in mind.

We don't need another receiver. Rice is awesome. There's no reason to think something will happen with another receiver that can't happen with Rice. Wilson just has to trust him to make plays. Rice cleaned up with Favre cos Favre would just throw it to him. Wilson prefers to play it safer.

formido wrote:We don't need another receiver. Rice is awesome. There's no reason to think something will happen with another receiver that can't happen with Rice. Wilson just has to trust him to make plays. Rice cleaned up with Favre cos Favre would just throw it to him. Wilson prefers to play it safer.

Rice IS awesome ... and adding another WR who can make plays as well (and really stretch the field) makes him even MORE awesome. Having 3 WR's out there (Rice, Tate, and Wallace) plus a TE who can do the same makes a team even that much more dangerous. Case in point -- tonight's AFC Championship Game (the Patriots). There's a reason that that team is in the AFC Championship -- and it's not just because of Tom Brady. That WR corps is downright scary (no real weaknesses -- with Gronkowski that is) - and because of that, makes that offense even more difficult to defend. That's something I'd love the Hawks to have as well.

I didn't realize Bowe was that "slow"... but compared to Wallace, yes.I think we need a big, physical, fast receiver. I say pick one up in the draft and let him develop. We'll probably have a healthy Baldwin next year.All that said, Wes Welker would be a great add for a couple seasons. The dude just gets open. He'd be awesome with a scrambling QB like Wilson.

Steve2222 wrote: "I'm going to call a spade a spade. This is a 9 win team who is going to need luck getting into playoffs."

Welker drops a TON of passes, especially lately. No thanks. Our offense doesn't throw enough to be able to put up with guys who miss their opportunities.

Say what you will about our receivers, but they made their catches all year. I think Miller will have a big receiving year; Tate will continue to develop, and hopefully Rice and Baldwin can get a little healthier than they've been. I think we also draw up more receiving opportunities for Turbin. Hopefully, we can find a big, athletic WR somewhere in the draft and give them a chance to develop.

olyfan63 wrote:I didn't realize Bowe was that "slow"... but compared to Wallace, yes.I think we need a big, physical, fast receiver. I say pick one up in the draft and let him develop. We'll probably have a healthy Baldwin next year.All that said, Wes Welker would be a great add for a couple seasons. The dude just gets open. He'd be awesome with a scrambling QB like Wilson.

I agree that Schneider probably WILL draft a WR ... but part of the issue with looking to improve the offense for next season is that the vast majority of WR's don't make a real splash in Year 1. They just don't. Take a look at a list of many of the greats and you'll find again and again that it takes time for these guys to develop. Sidney Rice wasn't Sidney Rice in year 1 ... neither was Golden Tate ... neither are tons of other receivers out there if you take a look at their profiles. I don't care if you're talking about guys like Sidney Rice ... or Hall of Famers like Jerry Rice, Chris Carter, and Michael Irvin -- very, very rarely do WR's make a real splash in their first year.

So, IF the Seahawks are looking to improve their offense even more ... they're probably also going to look to add someone via Free Agency. From where I'm standing, the one element that this WR corp is really lacking is Speed. The only guy I see on the Free Agent Market who's a potential impact player who has that is Mike Wallace. And if you believe the reports, it is highly unlikely that the Steelers will use the Franchise tag on Wallace ...